


things that leave a mark hurt the most

by justimpolite



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon character deaths, Gen, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, explores isaac's feelings about erica and boyd and what losing them meant to him, follows 3x22
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 19:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1316683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justimpolite/pseuds/justimpolite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They told Isaac that he wasn't himself, that the Nogitsune got into his head and made him do those things.</p><p>If he's being honest with himself, he's not so sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	things that leave a mark hurt the most

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a way to explore Isaac's feeling towards his pack members and what losing them meant to him, as it was never really addressed in the show, other than his possession in the last episode. I think it's a real shame that's the only real insight we got into how Isaac feels, also the first mention of Erica since her death (I mean, really?!)

Isaac never had a lot of friends.

Sure, he had Scott now who was like, his best friend, but they hadn’t always been friends. There was Lydia and Stiles, but they were more Scott’s friends than his. Then there was Allison, and that was, well- complicated.

And Derek? Derek might no longer be his Alpha, but he still felt like an authority figure to Isaac. It made any real kind of friendship difficult, because he still saw him as a leader more than anything, even if his leadership qualities were questionable.

When it comes down to it, Isaac can say there have only been two people he was sure were his friends. 

It wasn’t exactly a ‘friends from the first moment’ type thing. It had just been himself and Derek at first, in what was the most confusing time of his life. He struggled to look the older man in the eye, and avoided him when possible. He was still getting used to the power he felt surging through his veins.

But then came Erica. 

He knew who she was. He’d never been one of the kids to ridicule her. He always felt sorry for her, actually, but Isaac kept to himself, and so didn’t think it his place to come to her aid. 

(He regrets that now.)

It had been awkward at first, spending a few moments looking one another up and down, feet shuffling and fingers twitching. Derek had brought her to the abandoned station: ‘our territory’, he had called it. Erica looked up nervously, her think hair even messier than usual. She had glanced between the two wolves, before lifting her chin, cocking her eyebrow and asking if Derek pissed in the corner.

It was that moment Isaac made his first friend.

.

The next day Derek had handed over a wad of cash and instructed the both of them to head to the mall to buy some new clothes.

Neither of them had been the type to spend a lot on things like clothes, not that either of them particularly had a lot of money: Isaac’s father’s job had never paid that much, and Erica’s family’s money had been going to hospital bills for a long time. 

So they had both awkwardly browsed clothes rack after clothes rack, fingering expensive material and frowning at the more questionable designs. After a couple of hours with no purchases made by either party, Erica huffed, throwing her hands up.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Isaac looked up in surprise, they hadn’t exchanged more than a few words during the trip. ‘What are we doing?’

‘Uh, shopping?’

‘No, we’re not. We’re standing around awkwardly, too scared to try anything on.’

‘I’m confused, why would w-.’

‘Because we’re not too scared to try on some dumb clothes. It’s not about that. We’re too scared to take advantage of our abilities.’

Isaac had no response.

And with that, Erica grabbed several short skirts from the rack beside her, before turning on her heel and marching towards the changing rooms.

Two hours later the pair emerged from the mall laden with several bags and severely lighter pockets.

.

(Sometimes he missed them so much he thought he would die.)

.

It was nice, just the two of them. It was surprisingly easy. The only thing Isaac had struggled with more than making friends, was being around girls. Looking back, he thinks it was probably the pack bond that made it all so comfortable. Neither would be embarrassed about being around the other in varying states of undress during training, and they would just enjoy spending time with each other outside of combat and strategy sessions. They would joke around and tease Derek behind his back, (Isaac had never laughed so hard in his life), but then they would also talk about other things; their families, growing up, how fucking weird this whole thing was. Erica was the first person Isaac told about his father, and Isaac was the first person Erica could talk to about her epilepsy without feeling like a lesser person.

That being said, they fought too. 

They would get frustrated at being unable to control their wolves without endless lessons from Derek. They would bare their fangs at one another, growl up in one another’s faces, and occasionally end up rough housing on the floor before Derek pulled them apart.

(Isaac swore he heard Derek mutter about never wanting children under his breath one time.)

They cared for one another, and worked well together, but they had both become so headstrong that they started to come to blows more often than not.

They found balance in the arrival of Boyd.

.

Once Boyd received the bite, things felt different.

Both Isaac and Erica recognised him from school, but he had always been so quiet that they knew next to nothing about him.

The time around Boyd joining them was pretty crazy. Hell, they had almost killed Lydia. Something Isaac knows they all deeply regretted, though they never talked about it. Erica had told Isaac how she had knocked Stiles out with a hunk of his old jeep. If Isaac’s being honest, he still finds this pretty funny. But still, they all went too far that day, and Isaac could do things differently he would.

Or would he? Because at the end of the day, they got Boyd. 

Boyd took to being a wolf better than either Isaac or Erica had. He was patient, and so learned quicker. He was more focused, making him stronger. He was everything Derek had wanted in a Beta, and everything Isaac and Erica needed in a pack member. He balanced out the pack; a calmer, more serious counterpart to Erica and Isaac’s impatience and thirst for excitement. 

Together, they were pack. Together they were their own triskelion. 

.

When Erica and Boyd disappeared, Isaac threw himself into training. He wanted to be the best wolf he could possibly be, so that when they came home (and they would come home) he could say, ‘hey, look what you missed,’ and they would be proud of him, and they would be together again.

So he pushed himself harder and harder. He would push himself until all he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears, because only then could he ignore the feeling that something was seriously wrong.

.

Erica’s death changed Isaac.

When he saw Derek carrying her small body (god, he’d forgotten how tiny she really was’) he had retched there and then. 

He had caught a few words of Derek’s explanation; ‘vault’ and ‘already gone’, but he couldn’t take it anymore. 

Nobody but Derek and Boyd knew this, but after that day he left for a week. He still doesn’t remember where he went; he just knows there was a lot of loneliness, and a lot of pain.

.

Things are different after that. A lot different. No one call fill the huge hole left by Erica, it’s just not possible. Not that they would want anyone to.

They try to carry on as normal after that, but it doesn’t work. Boyd speaks even less than usual. Isaac knows there was something more between Erica and Boyd, and it hits him hard that they were never really able to explore that. 

But as terrible as Isaac feels for Boyd, and as much as he loves Boyd as a brother, Erica was Isaac’s best friend. 

No, she was more than that.

She was Isaac’s first friend.

And nothing would ever, ever replace that.  
.

No more than a few weeks after that, Boyd’s gone too.

Isaac’s too tired to run away this time.

.

Nobody talks about it. Nobody talks about them, and it makes Isaac so fucking angry he could scream.

He understands. They all feel guilty. 

Derek feels guilty for turning kids into weapons, only for them to be cut down months later.

Scott feels guilty that he didn’t try harder to save them.

Allison feels guilty that she herself had been so close to being the one to kill them.

And the others didn’t know them well enough to feel anything other than a brief, quiet sadness.

But Isaac knew them. Isaac knew them better than he had ever known anyone, and the pain their absence left in his chest was the most painful thing he could imagine. 

Derek sits him down one day and tells him it’s the pack bond doing it. ‘Losing pack is like losing a limb,’ Cora tells him.

‘Okay,’ Isaac says, but he knows its something different than that. Something much simpler.

Isaac just misses his family.

.

The Nogistune’s power has gone from him.

He remembers everything that he did; turning on Allison, trying to kill the twins. 

‘You weren’t yourself,’ they tell him. ‘It was the Nogitsune getting into your head.’

And yes, he never meant to hurt Allison, or anyone else that he cares for. And he knows that the Nogitsune took the darkest parts of him and made him act on them. But the difference between the way it affected him and everyone else, is that he was only a few moments away from killing the twins himself, dark possession or not.

He wanted them to suffer. The fact that they were working with Scott now made Isaac sick to him stomach. 

So yes, maybe the Nogitsune was controlling his hand when it searched desperately for that lighter, but ‘for Erica, for Boyd;’ that was him.

Maybe he didn’t succeed in avenging them, or whatever you want to call it. And now that he thinks about it, really thinks about it, he imagines Erica and Boyd probably wouldn’t want him to kill them. Well, to be honest he can kind of imagine Erica encouraging him, that big wolfy grin on her face, but then Boyd’s hand would come down gently on her shoulder, eyebrows raised, until she relented. Boyd would tell him he was better than this. 

He thinks back to a conversation they had not long before Erica and Boyd were taken and everything went to shit.

They had been talking about Derek first coming back to Beacon Hills, only to find Laura’s body in the forest.

‘I feel kind of awful for him to be honest,’ Erica had said, tucking tamer hair behind her ear. ‘Losing family is bad enough, I’ve heard losing pack is even worse.’

‘I mean, how did he even survive that, Omegas rarely survive in the wild, right?’ 

‘Well maybe he didn’t think of himself as a lone wolf?’

Isaac and Erica shared a questioning look, which prompted a deep laugh from Boyd, gesturing with his hands as he tried to explain.

‘Sure, Derek was technically an Omega, but maybe it was the memory of pack that kept him going. Losing pack must be unimaginable, but the feeling the pack gives you, I doubt that just goes away. Perhaps he just turned that loss into, I don’t know, motivation? Reason to keep going?’ 

Boyd’s words were followed by silence, nobody quite knowing what to say, until Erica, bumping her shoulder against Boyd’s said, ‘And this is why you’re the smart one.’

Isaac now found himself smiling at the memory. Then he laughed; a great big bellow of a laugh that shook his entire body. Of course Boyd was right. 

Because losing them did hurt. But he realises now that he’s been dealing with it the wrong way. He’s either been keeping it inside, having it eat away at him until he thinks he’s going insane, or using it to fuel feelings of some kind of revenge. 

He stands up from the forest floor, where he’s spent the last few hours, needing time to think all this over. He brushes the dirt off of his jeans, clapping his hands together to shake off any excess forest, noticing the indentations left behind from the little rocks and twigs.

Things that have gone leave marks; they leave scars. And maybe they fade away, or maybe they stay forever. You can let them act as an ugly reminder of what no longer is, or you can use them. You can use them as a reminder of what you were lucky enough to once have, and what continues to give you a reason to keep going. Because Isaac would be damned if he was going to let himself become like Ethan and Aiden, or Peter. He was better than that, and he would let that knowledge stay with him always.

He shoves hi hands into his pockets, heading back towards town, a small smile on his face.

He would be the wolf that Erica and Boyd would be proud of.


End file.
